And everyone else had left the world, and I was all alone.
No one thought to write a note, though I looked.
No explanation, nothing written on anyone’s calendar.
The day was not circled, saying “This is it!”

You were all just gone.
The first two weeks I just sat and waited for an explanation.
I tried to make sense of why the power grid didn’t fail.
Of why the phones all still worked (though no one answered).
Of who thought to take all the animals too.
(Good thing–I wouldn’t have been able to feed them all.)

Then for the next week I fancied that the entire world had
secretly been devoutly religious and I was the only atheist.
The rapture had happened. And if I had known Richard Dawkins’
number, I would have called to see if he was doing what I was doing:
eating yogurt from the fridge before the expry date passed.

Then the worst of it was gone, and I spent several months
finally reading all the books, and watching all the movies
I had never had a chance to read or watch before.
I went to the drugstore and stole cheap reading glasses
and played Burgess Meredith on the steps of the library
over and over again, thinking the joke would stop being
funny. It never did.

I kept myself busy. For a solid week I provided chalk outlines
for where I thought the people would have fallen, had they fallen.
It seemed like a charitable thing to do. A graffiti art project
for an audience of one.

I went and lived in abandoned houses and pretended I
belonged there. I tried to go through people’s CD libraries
and divine what they must have been like, before they left.

It’s going to be fine. I’ve stopped incessantly checking my voicemail,
to see if anyone called. I’ve stopped going online to see if
anyone had come on. I am still blogging, though. It sounds
mad, but it really does make sense. If it weren’t for that,
how would I remember all the adventures I’ve had as the
last man on earth.

The last man on earth.

There’s not even any vampires here to harass me and be
harassed in return. I’d even take the pasty-faced monks.
I’d accept you, Anthony Zerbe. It’s okay, come out and
try and kill me. It’s all good.

Nothing.

I’ll be moving south before it gets cold. Just in case the grid
does go. Just in case. Maybe there’s somebody else
in some other city, thinking these same things. Maybe everyone
has been shunted into their own world and everyone wound up alone.

It’s strange, you know. I’m not feeling lonely, really. I’m
just honesty curious as to where you all went. Or if you went
anywhere at all.

If I could talk to someone and find out what
happened, then that would be all right.

And that someone would be free to go.